Niedzielne ograniczenia handlu budzą wśród Polaków mieszane uczucia. Sprawdź jak nowa ustawa postrzegana jest przez obcokrajowca. Przy okazji poznasz nowe słówka i zwroty w języku angielskim!
Sunday shopping became a popular family outing in Poland in the early nineties.
I remember taking the family on day trips to Ikea, when it was located on al. Jerozolomskie, during cold, winter Sundays and, until recently, taking advantage of the charisma of one stop shopping at any of the recently built shopping malls, that also offer full, family, entertainment.
Since the implementation of the Sunday shopping ban, I realize that Sunday rest has not been a luxury for everyone, and it should be an integral part of equal treatment for all employees. On the other hand, large retail corporations have already begun adjusting their opening and closing hours to accommodate for sales losses. This means that employees will either have to begin work very early in the mornings and be to exhausted to spend quality time with their families, or they will get home so late on Saturday evenings, that they will not have the time or energy to spend with family and friends on one of the most social evenings of the week. Basically, they are pushing employees to work longer hours Fridays and Saturdays, and the work is harder because of the increase in customers.
Some people will lose their jobs or part of their income, particularly those employed on hourly wages and specifically students working to pay for their education and who make up of a large portion of the Sunday workforce. It would be much better for employers to place pressure on their staff to have two Sundays per month free.
Small, independent shops that were usually closed on Sundays because of the competition from larger shopping organizations, will take advantage of the additional business and reopen on Sundays with higher prices and underpaid employees.
Poles are among the hardest working citizens in the European Union and many rightly feel that Sundays are sometimes the only days they have to spend with their families. But the new law only relieves shop employees, what about bus and tram drivers and everyone else who works in the service industry.
It's not too much trouble for me to do my shopping a day or two ahead of time, but if any of my household appliances broke on a Sunday, I would simply have to tolerate the inconvenience until I had free time - on the following Sunday.
-Jack Gutkowski